London Fire Brigade - Fire Stations

Fire Stations

• Alphabetical list of fire stations from the LFB website

The LFB has 112 fire stations, including one independent river station, across the 32 London boroughs and the City of London. They are staffed 24 hours per day by full-time employees of the brigade, and are linked to a control centre in the Docklands. This centre was opened in 2004; calls to it are fed from 999 operators at BT, Cable & Wireless and Global Crossing.

Central London stations can attend up to 8,000 calls per year, inner-city stations about 3,000 to 4,000 calls per year (these tend to be the stations that are busy serving the poorer densely-populated areas), and outlying or suburban fire stations may attend around 1,500 calls which include road traffic accidents, grass fires and house fires.

Some UK fire authorities use part time, or 'retained', firefighters who live and work near their local station and are on-call, but the LFB is one of only two UK fire services where all operational staff are full-time employees.

Each station has four shifts, or 'watches': red, white, blue and green; with a Watch Manager in charge of each. The overall management of the station falls to the Station Manager, who will also attend serious incidents, as well as spending time on call.

A group of one (City of London) to six (Tower Hamlets) stations within a borough are managed by a Borough Commander (Group Manager) who interacts strategically on a local level with the Borough Commander for the police and the chief executive of the local authority.